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The Political Responsibility of Intellectuals addresses the many problems in defining the relationship of intellectuals to the society in which they live. In what respects are they responsible for, and to, that society? Should they seek to act as independent arbiters of the values explicitly or implicity espoused by those around them? Should they seek to advise those in public life about the way in which they should act, or should they withdraw from any form of political involvement? And how should their preoccupations with truth and language find practical expression? The contributors to this volume seek to provide tentative answers to these questions. They come from a wide variety of disciplines, ranging from economics to linguistics and sociology to philosophy, and are drawn from both America and Eastern and Western Europe. The volume is given a particular interest by recent political upheavals in Eastern Europe, where many intellectuals have been confronted with sharply practical, sometimes dramatic, choices about their role in the political arena.

Preface

Introduction

La trahison de la trahison des clercs

The loss of responsibility

Heritage and collective responsibility

Power and wisdom: the expert as the mediating factor in contemporary Polish history

Textual responsibility

Technology, politics and the responsibility of intellectuals

The intellectuals and the imitation of the masses

Responsibility and the act of interpretation: the case of law

The Hungarian intellectual between the duty of engagement and the duty of reserve